Oxford book conference starts Thursday

OXFORD – The Oxford Conference for the Book, in its 20th year, will convene Thursday through Saturday at the University of Mississippi and in Oxford.
Over three days, fiction and nonfiction writers, journalists, poets, publishers, teachers, students and literacy advocates will gather to talk about a range of topics.
On the agenda are speeches, panel discussions, readings, signings, performances and social events.
W. Ralph Eubanks, director of publishing at the Library of Congress and the author of two non-fiction books on the South, will present “Of Books and Libraries: Why Libraries, Publishing, and Storytelling Still Matter.”
Other sessions include the Grisham Writers at Ole Miss, writing Southern “grit lit,” programs planned for area fifth-graders and ninth-graders, ecopoetry, writing and teaching, identity politics, books on the Civil Rights Movement, art books, Southern music biography, literacy and the language barrier, a book signing with all conference authors and a live performance of “Thacker Mountain Radio.”
Oxford-area participants in the conference include, among others, Nic Brown, the John and Renee Grisham Writer-in-Residence at Ole Miss; poet Beth Ann Fennelly, director of the Ole Miss MFA program; author John T. Edge, director of the Southern Foodways Alliance; Square Books founder Richard Howorth; and author Curtis Wilkie, fellow of the Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics.
Other participants include author and singer/songwriter Mary Amato, Mathiston artist William Dunlap, Amazonian poet and essayist Juan Carlos Galeano, chef and TV personality Eddie Huang, and Vanderbilt University Writer-in-Residence Alice Randall.
Most sessions of the Conference are free and open to the public. Most will meet at the Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics on the Ole Miss campus.
For more details, visit www.oxfordconferenceforthebook.com.
or contact Becca Walton at (662) 915-5993 or rwalton@olemiss.edu.